[WATCH] Young Turks of Maltese local elections: the teens seeking the council vote

Meet Sean Gauci and Martina Grech... these young guns want your vote!

Sean Gauci and Martina Grech, respectively PN and PL candidates for the local council elections
Sean Gauci and Martina Grech, respectively PN and PL candidates for the local council elections
Young Turks of Maltese local elections: the teens seeking the council vote

A new army of young politicos is in town.

But fresh from the Vote-16 revolution that will allow voters as young as 16 to cast their vote for the upcoming local council and European election, expect some of the parties’ Young Turks not to stray too far from the party line.

Take the example of 18-year-old Sean Gauci, running for PN councillor in St Julian’s, and Labour candidate Martina Grech, running for a seat on the Qormi council: Gauci aspires to become a home affairs minister because he wants to work for the police force, while Grech’s ideal dinner guest is none other than the prime minister Joseph Muscat. So far, so ordinary.

But there are different facets to both candidates as well.

Gauci wants the environment to get more attention from the competent authorities. “If you think you can exploit the environment for monetary gain, try counting your money without breathing,” he says, calling for more parks and open spaces to be introduced instead of the continued surge of construction development.

Grech on the other hand wants a proper debate on the regularisation of cannabis to examine the possible effects of recreational use and how it could eliminate the black market of drugs. “Users don’t even know what they are smoking, and I don’t think we can keep going on with this situation,” she says.

Gauci however also agrees with full access to medicinal marijuana, and stressed on the importance of a holistic discussion on recreational cannabis. “I know that there are both advantages and disadvantages with recreational cannabis, and an open discussion on the issue would highlight both.”

Gauci is a professed anti-abortionist in the ongoing, low-key debate on women’s reproductive rights. “Nothing screams end of human rights and tampering of women’s rights than killing a baby in the womb,” Gauci said.

Grech also said that she is against abortion, but sees no problem with the issue being discussed. 

Gauci enjoyed reiterating BBC journalist John Sweeney’s put-down of Joseph Muscat as the “artful dodger of Europe”… while Grech thinks she doesn’t see Adrian Delia ever becoming Prime Minister, with his party wracked by internal division.

In March, Malta became the second country to grant 16-year-olds the right to vote in national and European elections. The voting age reform has now opened up national and European elections to a further 8,000 voters.